Traffic on the Internet is growing exponentially due to an increasing number of subscribers and the introduction of new applications. Wide area wireless networks are also experiencing rapid subscriber growth. Currently, there are many efforts underway to provide data services on wireless access networks, such as IEEE 802.11 networks. However, the provision of these high bandwidth data services is not necessarily conducive to efficient battery consumption, especially if a wireless access terminal (AT) spends long periods of time in the idle state.
Other networks, such as Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) wireless phone networks, with low bandwidth data rates, are optimised for paging services, supporting long idle and rapid page response times. ATs operating in these paging-optimized networks consume a minimum of battery power.
As the high data rate networks expand, more network coverage overlap is occurring with the above-mentioned paging-optimized networks. Concurrently, multi-mode ATs are entering the market that are able to communicate in both types of networks. While a multi-mode AT has the convenience of being able to communicate in either type of network, the battery consumption problem still exists if the AT is used to “camp” on the high data rate network.
It would be advantageous if an multi-network AT could seamlessly make use of the advantages offered by both paging-optimized and high data rate networks by camping on the paging-optimized network, and accessing the high data rate network only when data communications are required.
It would be advantageous if overlapping networks could cooperate, with the paging-optimized network providing high data rate network access information for any monitoring multi-network AT.